The Little Big Job

Small Stretch of Jersey City Roadway Gets Major Overhaul to Improve Connection to Manhattan

Two Viaducts on Route 139, which serve as main veins to the Holland Tunnel, are being reconstructed after decades of neglect.

Motorists speeding toward the entrance to the Holland Tunnel on their way to Manhattan probably are unaware of what the New Jersey Department of Transportation is doing to ensure that, behind the functioning roadway, the complicated infrastructure remains top-notch.

The agency is currently rehabilitating portions of Route 139 in Jersey City, N.J., by reconstructing the 12th & 14th Street viaducts that support the entrances to the Holland Tunnel. The $225 million project, funded by the Federal Highway Administration, spans approximately 2,000 ft in length and four lanes in width on each viaduct.

A new milestone was reached Feb. 1 when the construction team began work on the newest stage of the reconstruction—the eastbound 12th Street Viaduct.

Route 139 is a little-known yet important roadway system to northeastern New Jersey and its connection to New York City. Most riders are unaware of its official name, despite its daily load of approximately 100,000 vehicles, or 40,000 to 50,000 on each viaduct.

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A portion of the roadway is also part of the Route 1 & 9 Historic District. In addition to serving as a primary artery to New York via the Holland Tunnel, the roadway is an important connector for residents in the community, linking numerous local roads, the Interstate 78 New Jersey Turnpike Extension and routes 1 and 9. Both the 12th Street and 14th Street viaducts are elevated roadways, with the 12th Street Viaduct heading east and the 14th Street Viaduct west.

“The project [is] necessary due to the poor conditions of the existing structures and their age,” says Joe Grabler, project manager at D’Annunzio and Sons, of Clark, N.J. “One was built in 1926 and the other in 1946, and they are heavily traveled—so both were in serious need of repair.”

The two-phased project includes the repairing of the substructure of the viaducts, replacing the existing concrete decks with high-performance reinforced concrete, performing seismic retrofits to the viaducts, constructing a new shoulder, widening the 14th Street Viaduct, constructing a new retaining wall on the east end of the 12th Street Viaduct and waterproofing the subgrade of 12th Street over the existing arch structure.

Implementing a complex construction project on a major roadway—while maintaining traffic—was perhaps the biggest challenge, Grabler says. But the team has utilized a number of strategies to ensure that traffic keeps moving.

“The first phase of the project was to construct a shoulder structure on the 14th Street Viaduct, which would add a lane to use during construction but would be converted to a shoulder after construction,” says Larry Vogel, project manager at NJDOT.

Now that the 14th Street Viaduct is nearly complete, the lane has aided the team in construction of the 12th Street Viaduct.

“Work has now started eastbound,” Vogel says. “Because the westbound shoulder structure was constructed, that has allowed us extra lanes going westbound. One of those westbound lanes has been converted to a contra-flow lane using a barrier curb to allow one lane of eastbound traffic to use the westbound viaduct.”

Grabler adds that the contra-flow lane “enables us to keep, at a minimum, two lanes flowing eastbound throughout the reconstruction.”

Outreach to the community and coordination among all involved parties also presented challenges to the team, Vogel says. Coordination was required between the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, the City of Jersey City and numerous local neighborhood associations.

“All of the agencies and the community were concerned about the impact of this project on their traffic and the community’s way of life,” Vogel says.

To that end, he adds, he created a traffic mitigation task force while the project was in the design phase. That group brought all the parties together, as well as NJDOT units, and the organization Transcom in an effort to “get a better handle on what kind of traffic disruption we were going to cause and a way to mitigate it.”

The task force recommended a new method of traffic signaling for the busy intersection at Jersey Avenue where the Route 139 and New Jersey Turnpike traffic meet.

“All traffic coming off of the Route 139 Viaduct and the New Jersey Turnpike ramps come down to the same intersection at Jersey Avenue,” Vogel says. “The traffic signal was (previously) set up in a three-phase signal, meaning that when the turnpike traffic had green, the Route 139 traffic was stopped, and when Route 139 had green, the turnpike was stopped. In order to facilitate better traffic flow, a two-phase signal has been put into place so both New Jersey Turnpike and Route 139 traffic flow at the same time.”

While conflicting turns can no longer be made at this intersection, detours were put into place where needed, and a large-scale media campaign and numerous signs were put into place, Vogel adds.

The two phases of construction were expected to span five years. However, the team has consistently been ahead of schedule. Phase one, begun in 2005, finished six months early, allowing the project to advance rapidly to phase two. Phase two encompasses repair to the lower roadway where the 12th Street and 14th Street viaducts merge.

Grabler says the team is still ahead. What was originally a January 2010 estimated completion date is looking more like September 2009, he adds.

It is a rarity to find a roadway project ahead of schedule. In this case, partial credit can be given to NJDOT’s implementation of an incentive program, which rewards the contractor with $20,000 per day for completing the project ahead of schedule and penalizes it with fines of $20,000 per day for work not finished on time.

“Most obstacles we’ve been able to anticipate and handle without impacting the construction schedule,” Grabler says. “We hope to continue to do that until completion of the project.”